In case you missed it, #PublishingPaidMe has been going around writer twitter for the last day or two. Let me say that nothing in this post is to detract from that. That hashtag was so that people (Black writers) could see the disparity in advances across the industry. Please don’t let anything you read here take away from that, the most important point of the hashtag.

In this post, I’m going to give some additional information, because not all contracts are the same. My intention here is to help people compare apples to apples and to maybe explain some of this stuff to writers who haven’t signed their first contract yet.

The initial offer for my debut book deal for PLANETSIDE was for $7500 for one book. That included world English rights and audio rights. My agent negotiated that to two books at the same rate per book, and pushed back on world English and Audio, as we wanted to retain those rights. The publisher didn’t budge on audio (most won’t these days) or world English. We had no other offers from publishers, so we didn’t have a whole lot of leverage.

I should add that this isn’t out of the norm for adult SF debuts. I’ve shared numbers with a lot of people, and 5K to 12K is a pretty normal range.

Harper Voyager, the publisher, was looking to do a mass market debut, which is a factor in the pay. I was actually happy with that, because I feel like as a debut author, a low price point can be useful…people don’t always want to take a risk on someone they haven’t read, but when the paperback is $8 and the e-book is $6, it’s a little easier to hit that buy button (this is my own opinion only).

My royalty rates were 8% of paperback cover price, and 25% of e-book and audiobook receipts. That’s about 64 cents per paperback, $1.05 per e-book, and right around $1.65 per audio book based on the price of my book. The royalty rate for paperbacks goes up to 10% after we sell 150,000 units (which will never happen).

Here’s the support I got: Harper’s sales team pushed me to book stores, to the point where I was in most of them. I was in the “New in Paperberback” display at B&N. They did an outstanding cover with original art (by Sebastien Hue). I got my first choice of audio book narrator–RC Bray, which was very important to me. I had a dedicated publicist who got me some cool reviews and a couple of great guest post slots. He was great.

Here’s what happened: PLANETSIDE sold well. It released on July 30, 2018. My first accounting period ran from July 1st to December 31st. In those 5 months the book sold through by almost double…so I got my first royalty check at the earliest possible time. When I say it sold through, that means that my percentage eclipsed the $7500 advance and I got paid for the amount above that…approximately another $7K in that first period.

Around then, I turned in SPACESIDE, my second novel, and my publisher accepted it. Once they accepted it, I could send in my proposal for my option book, which I did. That led to an offer for my second contract, which was a bit more complicated.

As you can see in the tweet, for my second contract, I got $15K per book. The initial offer was $10K per book for two books.

Here’s how that number happened from my perspective. I’m not speaking for my agent or my publisher, who actually know more than I do…but this is my perception. This is to help you see how things like advances happen. It is in no way me trying to be defensive. I really don’t care what people think about my deal. As they say, it is what it is.

1. This deal was always going to happen. PLANETSIDE sold through quickly, so it was in in both my and the publisher’s interest to make a deal for more books. We were both making money.
   
2. The publisher offered early. At the time of the offer, SPACESIDE hadn’t even been published. We had one data point, which was PLANETSIDE, so the publisher was taking a bit of risk that the second book would sell well. Yes, they have predictive models. We had our own thoughts as well.
   
3. We probably took a bit below market deal for the books in order to get the deal done quicly. At this point…about 2 years after release…PLANETSIDE has sold through over 4 times the initial advance. But we didn’t have those numbers at the time. If we waited for those numbers, we could probably have held out for more per book in the second deal. Why do I say it’s below the actual value of the book? SPACESIDE, in less than a year, has sold through the COLONYSIDE number.

Here’s why we didn’t wait:

1. It was more important to me to get a book out faster than to maximize the advance. When SPACESIDE released, I saw a huge jump in sales in not only that book, but also in PLANETSIDE. Since it had sold through, that was all money in my pocket. So I wanted book 3 out as soon as possible so that I could repeat that phenomenon, this time for both PS and SS, both of which have sold through.
   
2. I don’t need the money immediately. I have a good pension from my time in the army. This gives me the ability to try to maximize my long term money from books at the expense of up-front money.
   
3. Release date was more important to me than advance. First, I wanted the book out as soon as possible. The publisher has worked with me on that, and I really appreciate it. Plus, I wanted to avoid going head to head with certain books…most notably, Craig Alanson’s. If this sounds really specific to you, you’re right! Here’s why. I sell more books on audio than in any other format. Audio book buyers have certain habits due to how Audible sells books. It’s a subscription service, and a lot of listeners get one credit a month. Alanson is the category killer in military SF. When his books come out, I lose sales. When SPACESIDE released, it went to #1 in military SF audiobooks. That’s a big deal. It helps people discover the series. If I go head to head with Alanson, I don’t hit #1. So it’s really beneficial for me to avoid that with COLONYSIDE. Since Craig happens to be a friend, he was more than happy to share his schedule with me.
   
4. The publisher worked with me on non-monetary things that meant a lot to me. They were very flexible on due date, which was important with me ending my day job. They let me write the books I want to write. They initially asked for Planetside 3 and 4. We negotiated to Planetside 3 (COLONYSIDE) and a non-Planetside-series book. I wanted my choice of narrator put in the contract (which isn’t at all a normal thing) so that RC Bray will narrate my next two books. Since a lot of my sales are audio, that’s a really big deal to me (and to my audio fans).
   
5. They gave me an exemption to my non-compete clause that’s going to let me get an extra book published (with a different publisher) over the next two years. Since I can write more than a book a year, that’s an extra book’s worth of money I can make.

Hopefully there’s some information in here that’s helpful to you. If not, I at least hope it was interesting looking behind the sausage making of how a contract happens. COLONYSIDE comes out on December 29th.